[hresvelgr]

Something that isn't touched on as much is that in the time between old-school native apps and Electron apps is design systems and brand language have become much more prevalent, and implementing native UI often results in compromising design, and brand elements. Most applications used to look more or less the same, nowadays two apps on the same computer can look completely different. No one wants to compromise on design.

This mentality creates a worse experience for end users because all applications have their own conventions and no one wants to be dictated to what good UX is. The best UX in every single instance I've encountered is consistency. Sure, some old UIs were obtuse (90% weren't) but they were obtuse in predictable ways that someone could reasonably navigate. The argument here is between platform consistency and application consistency. Should all apps on the platform look the same, or should the app look the same on all platforms?

edit: grammar

[pavlov]

If I look at the Notion and Linear desktop apps, they’re essentially identical in styling and design. They’re often considered the best of today’s web/Electron productivity apps, and they have converged on a style that’s basically what Apple had five years ago.

IMO that’s a fairly strong argument that the branding was always unnecessary, and apps would have been better off built from a common set of UI components following uniform human interface guidelines.

[lelandfe]

I do notice those things occupying your "essentially," and your "basically." The success of worse designed stuff is a hard thing to argue against, though.

[zigzag312]

> The best UX in every single instance I've encountered is consistency.

While I agree that consistency is hugely important, I have also seen a lot of cases where it made the UX worse. The reason is that, unfortunately, UX isn't so simple. There isn't a single UX rule that is always true. UX design rules (best practices, guidelines, or principles) are a good starting point, but in a lot of situations multiple rules are conflicting each other. UI/UX design is dealing with tradeoffs most of the time. Good designer will know when breaking a specific rule will actually improve the UX.

Consistency is very important, but sometimes a custom UI element will be the best tool for the job. For example, imagine UI for seat selection in a movie theater ticket booking app. A consistent design would mean using standard controls users are already familiar with, but no standard control will provide high quality UX in this situation (not without heavy modifications).

But I still I agree with you that a lot of bad UX is due to inconsistency. There needs to be a good reason each time consistency broken and often it is broken for the wrong reasons.

[rixed]

  > No one wants to compromise on design.

I, the user, would totally want that.

[copperx]

The user is at the bottom of the stakeholder list.

[tertle950]

I can feel my advertiser data being siphoned from my body already!